


last to fall

by 99yeon



Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: F/F, Lesbians in Space, aka im a space nerd and projected all of it into this fic, but go minayeon, honestly more nayeon-centric than minayeon, mina is a doctor, nayeon is a pilot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-14 09:21:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13004712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/99yeon/pseuds/99yeon
Summary: If you asked a five year-old Nayeon what she wanted to be when she grew up, she’d probably say a princess or a fighter pilot for the Apollo-Jupiter Satellite. This was before Nayeon found out that princesses were born into the job, and that little girls born to intergalactic pirates were supposed to follow in their parents’ footsteps.





	1. voyager

If you asked five year-old Nayeon what she wanted to be when she grew up, she’d probably say a princess or a fighter pilot for the Apollo-Jupiter Satellite. This was before Nayeon found out that princesses were born into the job, and that little girls born to intergalactic pirates were supposed to follow in their parents’ footsteps.

Her examiner had looked her up and down at a preliminary screening and asked where her parents were. She’d barely restrained herself from telling him that they were serving life in a Deimos jail. By all accounts, she’s an orphan, having lost her parents in an unfortunate passenger jet accident that sheared off the back half of the ship where her parents were sitting. It makes for good entertainment, and some girls dig the whole gritty orphan thing, anyway. She doesn’t think about it much. Doesn’t really want to.

There are some things she can’t shake, though. It’s been a good eighteen years since she ditched her parents’ ship at age seven to hitch a ride aboard the IFS Jupiter and come aboard the Apollo-Jupiter Satellite, and only slightly less since she graduated as a fighter pilot, but there’s always that slight inkling of not belonging. There are people here who’ve spent their whole life aboard the station, people with connections and backgrounds great and grand. It’s hard not to get disillusioned with the state of things.

She chooses to think about that less, instead focusing more on the fact that she’s doing what she loves - exploring the cosmos and leading humanity’s effort to feel at home in the galaxy, beyond the remains of an irreparably irradiated Earth. No longer is she the scared little girl who hid in the back of a cargo spaceship. She’s made herself who she is, and damn anyone who tries to take that away from her.

☆

“I love what you’ve done with the place,” Nayeon snarks, running a hand along the cushioned walls. It’s leather, probably fake - Sana doesn’t get paid enough to have real bovine skin in her cabin - but Nayeon knows better than to call her out on it. She appreciates the lack of any smell, for one. “So artsy.”

“Thank you,” Sana replies, missing the obvious sarcasm. “Decaf for you?”

Once again, Nayeon knows better than to take it as a real question. Sana can and will take every opportunity to bring up that  _ one  _ time Nayeon asked for decaf instead of her normal brew. In her defense, she was going back to her cabin and had an important mission in the morning that she had to rest for her, so sue her. The younger girl still cries foul about Nayeon’s preferences for  _ lazy bean water  _ once in awhile, when she’s run out of things to say.

Not that Nayeon doesn’t appreciate her talkative nature. Half the time here is spent waiting to be called into action or briefed, and everyone gets a little tired of it eventually. Not Sana, though. Sana is probably the most excitable pilot to ever graduate in decades.

“I’m good, don’t worry.” 

“Something stronger?” Sana hums, turning around to look at Nayeon. For her sake, Nayeon forces a smile - Sana is always so worried about her, always making a point to check in on her that sometimes Nayeon feels like they’re more mother and daughter than colleagues. They’re colleagues in the basest sense of the word, anyway. “I picked something up from the a starstop yesterday, the one on Phobos.”

Nayeon raises her eyebrows when Sana retrieves a bottle of pills from one of her hoodie pockets. The transparent bottle doesn’t help obscure the glowing red pills, and she wonders absently if this counts as contraband. Well, yes, technically they’re allowed to keep whatever they find on their travels as long as they don’t pose any significant threat to the station — that means no radioactive matter, or antimatter, though the second rule has never had a chance to be enforced. Something about breaking the rules of the universe and unleashing mutual annihilation.

You know, fun stuff.

“That looks… dangerous,” she observes.

Sana shrugs, popping off the safety seal, “Well, the guy who sold it to me had like, five arms and red eyes.”

Nayeon shudders. The twin moons of Mars were practically deserted after the solar flare a few decades back, what with all the electrical systems instantly flatlining and communications systems failing. But some people had stubbornly stayed, either because they didn’t think an acute amount of radiation wasn’t a big deal or because they’d grown up on the moons. Either way, with most of the settlers having died out and the rest having mutated beyond looking remotely human, most pilots choose to fly past the starstops on Phobos and Deimos when their paths require them to venture into the inner planets, stopping only at Jupiter’s starstops for their convenience stores or bathrooms.

It’s sad, really, but Nayeon would rather spare herself the nightmares. She’s impressed Sana was brave enough to do so - Sana is famously squeamish, and screamed her voice hoarse that one time Jeongyeon brought back a particularly damp sample for examination.

Sana tosses a pill into her mouth, washing it down with a swig of water. She grips the counter, takes a deep breath, and grins up at Nayeon, eyes abnormally wide.

“Try it!” Sana gushes, arms twitching at her sides.

The pill bottle is tossed to Nayeon, and Nayeon has just enough time to examine the label before Sana starts foaming at the mouth.

☆

Nayeon waits outside Sana’s ward, mostly because the ward is crammed with other patients which would really benefit from having more air to themsleves and not with Nayeon taking all of it up. Her head is in her hands — not because she’s worried, though. The orderly who’d admitted Sana had taken one look at the pill bottle Nayeon had provided him and assured Nayeon that she’d be mostly fine.

Rather, she’s wondering how she’ll explain having to be excused from another patrol shift. Jihyo is going to be harsh with her about picking up the slack and not disappearing when she doesn’t get to do exciting scouting or shipment missions, and Nayeon knows that she deserves it. She really does have to stop hanging around people who keep getting themselves admitted to the medical ward.

Sana’s doctor emerges from the ward, and Nayeon looks up.

The doctor is no one she recognizes, which is surprising, because Nayeon’s been on the station long enough to acquaint herself with it and everyone inside. She’s even friends with the pilots from the Pluto satellite, which is pretty impressive considering the amount of time it takes to transmit messages there and back. Pluto technology and communications systems are - pardon the pun - light years behind everyone else’s.

Nayeon’s eyes flick to her nametag, past the staff of Asclepius sewn onto her sleeve.

_ Myoui Mina. _

“Doctor,” she blurts out, standing up to face her. The doctor has a stern face, but Nayeon tells herself that it won’t intimidate her. (She’ll be intimidated by how pretty she is instead.) “How’s Sana?”

Wow. She is  _ very  _ pretty. Nayeon is willing to bet that Jihyo knows who this woman is, and makes a mental note to ask her about Mina when Jihyo’s done roasting her for dodging patrol.

“Your friend is fine,” Mina tells her, briefly consulting the very official looking tablet in her hands before continuing, Nayeon wishes they gave that much budget to the pilots and their clunking ships, “We don’t know what’s in her system, though. We’ll run tests on the pills, but it’s nothing we’ve seen before. For now, I’m guessing a lot of caffeine and amphetamine.”

Nayeon shrinks, daunted by the four-syllable word, and Mina smiles, patting her on the back, “It’s nothing you need to worry about, Captain. You can head on to your patrol and visit her tonight.”

Nayeon’s eyes widen, “How do you-”

“Commander Park and I are friends,” Mina laughs, and this is where Nayeon decides that she’s fallen and can’t get up.

“T-Thank you,” she stutters, bowing awkwardly and backpedaling, much to Mina’s apparent amusement. Nayeon wonders if she should salute, but then remembers from boot camp that you only salute officers. Mina has no rank visible, so she decides against it for the time being. She’s left with a very contorted expression on her face, staring helplessly at the doctor and willing her to leave so her muscles work again.

“See you around, Captain Im,” Mina smiles. 

Nayeon nearly cries.

☆

She taps her ID chip against the scanner, feet tapping against the floor as she thinks of how she’s going to explain this to Jihyo. Her commander is renowned for being laxer than most but still being able to reap results - something about commanding the sharpest fleet of captains to graduate in millennia. As a result, they get away with a lot, but Nayeon’s not sure it’ll work this time, not after Chaeyoung was written up by an interim commander last week for violating safety code. (She’d left a cup holder out on her ship dashboard.)

The doors slide open, granting her access to the loading bay, and she comes face to face with a very irritated Jihyo.

Nayeon finger-guns, “Jihyo-”

“ _ Commander, _ ” Jihyo growls, red in the face and visibly agitated. She looks as if she’s about to tear Nayeon into pieces for being late. It’s kind of intense, honestly.

“Commander,” Nayeon amends, grinning weakly. The commander looks unamused, fixing her with a hard glare. Nayeon gulps.

She turns, Nayeon following without question as they make their way to where Nayeon’s ship is parked, speaking at a rapid-fire pace as they weave in and out of exhausted pilots and technicians working on ship maintenance. The loading bay is abuzz with activity twenty four hours a day, with hundreds of people in it at any given time to make sure things go smoothly.

“We’re understaffed today. Captain Son and Captain Chou have the same strain of strep throat, I don’t know how it happened considering they live in different wings.”

Nayeon raises her eyebrows silently, knowing a  _ whole lot  _ about how Chaeyoung and Tzuyu managed to fall sick together. Jihyo is a genius by any standard, but she misses a lot.

Jihyo pauses in her tragic monologue as they pass the equipment bay, Nayeon scanning in her ID and getting her helmet and flying suit dispensed to her. “Captain Hirai is stranded on one of Jupiter’s moons and is stuck there until we can get a technician there. It’s going to take a day, a week at most to get her back.”

“So, why  _ are  _ you late, Captain?”

Nayeon feels bad for the younger girl sometimes - Jihyo has standards to live up to, beyond any of those that she impresses upon her fleet. It’s hard coming from a line of outstanding explorers and appearing comparably mediocre. Jihyo’s choice of career makes things even worse for her.

She’s anything but mediocre, though. They all know that. She just has to believe in herself, but it seems that she’s hellbent on doing the opposite.

“Sana ate something bad,” Nayeon half-lies, “I went to the medical wing with her.”

Jihyo rears back as if she’s been struck, eyes softening, “Is she alright?”

Nayeon tries not to smile. Her commander has always had such a soft spot for Sana, which may or may not be a result of the little “visits” Jihyo was paying Sana’s cabin for a while a few years back. Sana never admitted to it either, which Nayeon takes as an admission of guilt. She can’t think of why, though. She reckons Jihyo and Sana would look good together.

“She’s fine,” she nods seriously, deciding to focus on other things, “Do you want me to go get Momo? Dahyun should be free to fix her ship, we can be back within the day-”

“No,” Jihyo says gruffly, trying to use her Scary Commander Voice and failing miserably, “Just finish up the patrol and come back. I’ll go get Momo. Just make sure Sana’s fine.”

“Aye aye, Cap’n,” Nayeon wiggles her fingers, shooing Jihyo away from her ship as she hops in. Jihyo is still standing there, frowning at her and mouthing something that looks like  _ I put up with way too much from you, unnie.  _ Nayeon decides to stop by Venus to get Jihyo more of those pumice stones she likes so much. She’s heard they exfoliate well.

Jihyo walks off as Nayeon leisurely does her pre-flight checks, checking the fuel levels - they’re hovering close enough to the empty indicator that Nayeon pages a technician to help her refuel - flicking the necessary switches, making sure that the compass in her navigation panel isn’t broken this time. It’s routine for the most part, but she can’t help smiling through it. Sure, patrols are dreary and all feature Nayeon falling asleep at the wheel at least once, but she never takes them for granted. They remind her how lucky she is to be alive and here in a time like this, where she can find whizzing through the solar system at light speeds dull. Her ancestors who’d dreamt of the stars roll in their graves whenever she so as much complains about patrols.

There’s something about patrols that bring out the best in her. It feels good to look down on the colonies and muse about how she’s been tasked to ensure their safety. She might not be a cop, but her presence means that her people are being watched over, and she’s more than happy with that.

She waves to the technician when he’s done fuelling her ship, signalling to the ground crew to lower her platform. She reclines in her seat, watching the platform slowly lower, bringing her to the departure bay, where there’s even more waiting to be done. There are dozens of ships waiting to be sent out, and she puts on some soulful music as she waits for the signal from the traffic controllers.

Her PA crackles to life as another ship blasts off, and she’s startled out of her soft reverie, “ID? What is the purpose of your trip?”

“220995T, Routine patrol,” she yells back, even though the mic is sensitive enough to pick up whispers. “This is Captain Im Nayeon.”

“Oh, hey unnie!” Dahyun chirps, sounding more excited. Today must be  _ really  _ slow - Dahyun loves helping out in traffic control when she can, and has taken to begging the actual operators at base for a chance to talk to the pilots. Most days, she’s rejected, but today must be special. “Have a safe flight!”

Nayeon laughs, sitting back in her seat again, “Thanks, Dahyun.”

☆

Nayeon’s halfway through the asteroid belt, returning from her quick nip to Venus with a bunch of skincare products (she’d had to haggle with the one-eyed mutants on prices, and it doesn’t help that most of them were vehemently against the idea of human pilots in their presence), hair only slightly singed when her communication panel lights up.

She’s not too fazed at first, reaching across the dashboard to accept the call — she’s a little off-schedule and should’ve returned an hour or so ago, but it’s not as if it doesn’t happen all the time. It must be Jihyo, checking in on her - the commander hasn’t quite mastered the art of texting over hologram calls yet,  Or maybe it’s Jeongyeon with another scientific breakthrough that uses too many words that Nayeon doesn’t want to comprehend and frankly, Jeongyeon is abusing her access to Nayeon’s communications systems-

It turns out that it’s nothing like that. Instead, it’s Sana, who grins at her from the safety of her own cockpit. Her image flickers to life in a panel that expands and projects her image, and the younger girl is grinning so wide she could pass for not having passed out earlier in the day.

Nayeon grimaces, “Sana?”

“ _ Unnie!”  _ Sana beams, waving. The transmission flickers from the strain of streaming HD, and Nayeon slaps it in frustration. She’ll have to talk to Dahyun about upgrading her ship soon.  _ “I got out early.” _

“And Jihyo sent you on  _ patrol?  _ ” Nayeon says, aghast. She’s half a mind to go full throttle and intercept Sana’s ship. She’s flying close to Jupiter’s rings, and Nayeon could theoretically gain on her and wrangle her back to the station to rest. Either that, or she can race back to the station and chew Jihyo out for daring to send Sana on patrol given her health. As far as she’s concerned, a visit to the infirmary means that she’s sick, quick recovery or not. 

“ _ No, I’m going to get Momo, _ ” Sana chirps,  _ “I’m going to tow her back to the station. _ ” She holds up a hand before Nayeon can speak,  _ “Jihyo didn’t make me do anything. I left of my own accord. _ ”

“And Jihyo  _ let you?”  _ Nayeon’s eyebrows knit together.

Sana suddenly looks very guilty, “ _ I may or may not have convinced her to.” _

Nayeon puts her face in her hands for the second time today. Damn Jihyo for being such a softie and easily swayed by pretty girls with puppy eyes. Damn her.

Apparently Jihyo can read minds and enact revenge for mean thoughts, because she has to slam her hands back on the steering a moment later, with autopilot spontaneously giving up on navigating through the asteroid belt. She draws the ship into a sharp left to avoid the Trojan asteroids headed her way, holding her breath as the ship banks to the left. The asteroids aren’t very heavy, but they’ll cause damage if she collides into them. She would rather keep her ship in tip-top condition, thank you very much.

(Her ship will never compare to the shiny likes of Tzuyu’s, but it’s of respectable quality, and only slightly beat up. She’d argued with Dahyun for a week on whether to replace the hull after a particularly messy retrieval mission. The dents in the hull give it character.)

Thankfully, the controls are smooth enough for her to veer clear of the asteroids without incident, and she looks back at the communications screen. Sana’s taking a swig of water, oblivious to Nayeon’s navigating, and Nayeon’s pretty sure she can hear  _ Pretty Little Liars  _ in the background.

Sana’s first order of business she moment she was promoted to a captain was to install the best surround sound systems money could buy. She was stuck paying instalments for months, but maintains that it was the best decision she’s ever made. Her ship’s soundproof too, if that counts for anything.

“I should report you to traffic control, Minatozaki,” Nayeon snaps sourly, “Flying while impaired is a punishable offence.” She thinks, and grins savagely, “What is Dahyun going to say?”

“  _ ahyun’s actually here. _ ” The tiny engineer pops up on screen, elbowing Sana to get a good view, and waves enthusiastically, much to Nayeon’s chagrin. Her hair is sticking up in cowlicks, hands greased and toying with a spanner. Nayeon will never understand Dahyun’s propensity to get herself dirty and gross all the time, even when she doesn’t need to. She’s pretty sure some of the oil streaks are there for show.

There’s a smacking sound. She guesses it’s Sana hitting Dahyun gently and whining for Dahyun not to touch anything with her filthy hands.

Dahyun leans in deviously close, wiggling her nose, and the connection cuts out.

☆

The rest of the day is relatively routine. She flashes her headlights as she pulls into the arrival bay, powering down her ship and shutting down the systems, not bothering to look at the checklist traffic control insisted on pasting in every ship.

Then there’s more waiting, and Nayeon curses the amount of bureaucracy involved in something that is miles away from needing bureaucracy involved. But  _ nooo, _ they need her flight logs, and copies of her black box recordings to be stowed away for another eternity, and a complete log of anything she brought back.

That’s not her problem, though - she just chills out in the cockpit, playing Pacman and bubble shooter games to will away the time as the technicians and engineers hurry around the loading bay and fuss about her ship.

Stepping out of the ship into the loading bay is another matter altogether - she spends this time wading through the throng of people, and has to push more than once. At this point, her scheduler reminds her that it’s time for dinner, and she dutifully follows the rest of the crowd headed to the cafeteria. Sadly, the entire world has chosen to have dinner together.

She should be used to this by now, having grown up in the station, but it’s still unpleasant, and she thinks she sees some familiar faces here and there. That flash of a white lab coat? Could be Jeongyeon, could also be a hungry scientist leaving the lab for the first time in days. It’s always hard to tell with their type.

She’s swept along by the crowd, and eventually ends up at the back of the cafeteria line. Groans when she sees the pilot menu tonight - everyone has personalized meals to ensure optimum performance. The engineers get carb-heavy pasta dishes or whatever it is they want to eat, and the pilots, the ones who actually fly the ships? They get pan-fried skinless chicken breast that might as well be seasoned with water for how flavorful it is.

Sometimes Nayeon thinks she should’ve become a technician instead. Better employment benefits, better food, better job security. (Though that last part may have to do with pilots constantly injuring themselves and putting themselves out of commission, and less to do with the nature of engineering.)

She scans her ID chip and lifts the tray of food. The warm chicken breast jiggles in greeting, and she sighs.

Jeongyeon is waiting for her at their usual spot when she leaves the queue, the scientist gesturing for Nayeon to sit down. Her eyes are wide and excited behind her Coke bottle glasses, and Nayeon groans knowingly.

“You’ll never guess what I found today,” Jeongyeon says happily, producing a few microscope slides from her shirt pocket. (She’s not in her lab coat, and Nayeon silently thanks the lab assistant that told Jeongyeon to lose it before leaving the lab.) A small leaf has been pressed in between two glass slides, the label unreadable to anyone who isn’t Jeongyeon, and Nayeon raises her eyebrows.

“I don’t speak nerd.” She doesn’t mean to be rude to Jeongyeon - okay, maybe just a little bit - but she’s tired and just wants to have her dinner in peace. Jeongyeon either doesn’t know or doesn’t care. Probably the latter.

Jeongyeon punches Nayeon’s arm, “Shut up. Anyway. Jihyo came back from a field exercise with some flowers growing on her suit and traffic control was going to get it disinfected-”

“Gross, I thought we got rid of all the Mars moss-” 

“-but I was like, no guys, this is really important. And it is!” Jeongyeon beams proudly. “Turns out these flowers  _ aren’t  _ plants. They’re animal cells, it turns out. Caught them wriggling and everything. If this turns out to be a new species, it’ll be named after me!” 

Nayeon gapes, “That’s disgusting.”

“Disgustingly amazing,” Jeongyeon sighs, collecting the slide and slotting it back into her breast pocket. She tucks into her food without further hesitation, and it’s well-appreciated quiet for a while, just the two of them as they eat. Nayeon would prefer it if Jihyo were here, but she hasn’t shown up much recently to their lunches. She supposes it’s part of growing up.

Nayeon gets a proper look at Jeongyeon between bites, and wonders if she’s lost weight, given her gaunt cheeks and thin wrists. She knows that Jeongyeon regularly skips meals to work in her lab, fulfilling the recluse nerd stereotype to the max, but she also knows that she’s smart enough not to deny herself proper nutrition.

She hopes she’s right.

Jeongyeon straightens up, “Oh yeah. I forgot,” she retrieves a large manila envelope from seemingly thin air, “Can you help me get this to Dr Myoui? It’s the analyses of the pills she wanted.”

Nayeon prides herself as being relatively easygoing, but she can’t help the stab of jealousy when Jeongyeon waves the envelope marked  _ for Dr Myoui  _ in her face.

Of course - the scientists on the station work closely with the medical wing, helping them run tests and identify unknown substances as and when they’re needed. This revelation shouldn’t annoy her as much as it does.

She takes it grudgingly, biting back any words, “Yeah, okay.”

Jeongyeon laughs, a knowing look in her eye.

☆

Mina looks amusingly tiny in her office when Nayeon makes her way in, shoulders small against the high-backed chair. It’s grand, almost too grand - Nayeon’s guessing that she hasn’t had time to repurpose the room from the previous inhabitant’s to her own tastes.

She knocks once, staring through the glass panel in a manner she hopes is more respectful and less creepy. You never know with doctors - the doctor who saw Nayeon for her broken arm last year told her not to make eye contact with her. 

“Come in,” Mina calls, not looking up from her work. She’s focused on the same tablet Nayeon had seen her with earlier in the day, left hand propping up her chin, and Nayeon takes a moment to admire how good the doctor looks.

“Doctor,” Nayeon stutters as the door swings open, holding up the envelope dumbly, once again facing the dilemma of whether to salute or not. It’s okay not to salute if she’s holding something, right? Or is she expected to change hands to salute? She really, really wasn’t made for this business.

“H-Hi,” she squeaks.

She freezes up, and Mina looks up, laughing softly. It’s tinkling and melodic, and Nayeon feels her heart flutter.

She steels herself, reminding herself that this little crush is dumb because Mina probably considers herself light years out of Nayeon’s league. Fighter pilots are looked down by pretty much the entire medical wing. And the engineers. And the technicians. And flight control. It might be completely deserved, considering the pilots’ propensities to get themselves into scraps over stupid things regularly, but it’s never nice for someone to openly look down on them. They’re the driving force of the station, anyway.

“Captain,” she nods, reaching out for the envelope, “Is that for me?”

“Uh, yeah,” Nayeon pulls herself away from her spot, stumbling towards the teak desk, and her knees are incredibly weak. She blames the way Mina’s looking at her. There’s something about the doctor’s stare, she figures, that disarms helpless captains. That must be it. “Here.”

She’s expecting Mina to do something, anything, maybe dismiss her, or laugh at her, Nayeon really wouldn’t mind either. Maybe she’ll just go back to her work and shoo Nayeon out of her office, but something tells Nayeon that Mina isn’t that type of person.

Instead, the doctor slides the envelope in a drawer, rising from her seat and smiling at Nayeon. Nayeon thinks her head spins, and judging from the look on the doctor’s face, she prays that Mina feels the same way. She wouldn’t be looking at her if she didn’t like her, or at least find her pleasant enough to appraise, right? Nayeon hasn’t felt this way since she crushed on her flight instructor, and was  _ that  _ a hell of a ride.

Sana is going to laugh at her when she hears about this.

“Can I walk you back to your cabin?” she blurts out.

☆

Nayeon learns a few things about Mina in the walk to her wing. 

First off, she’s not from here, which is why Nayeon has never seen her around before. Mina had laughed and gently made fun of Nayeon’s confidence that she knew everybody on the station, then conceded that the pilot was right.

Second, Mina is a transfer from the Voyager-Neptune satellite. She’d been transferred after higher-ups from the Apollo-Jupiter station sent a distress call to her satellite to request for more medical personnel. Apparently, the Voyager-Neptune satellite doesn’t see much action, its primary business being research on the Neptunian moons and their natural resources. 

(“The biggest station in the solar system isn’t that well manned,” Mina notes softly before noticing Nayeon’s expression. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“No, no,” Nayeon shakes her head, “I know what you mean.”)

Third, Mina’s finding it hard to adapt to the culture aboard the Jupiter station. She shakes her head when Nayeon asks her if she’s finding it easy to cope, citing that the Jupiterian tendencies to be loud and ignorant. Nayeon opens her mouth before accepting that it’s true. It must be shocking for a born and raised Neptunian like Mina - her people are known to be relaxed, calm like the rippling waters of Neptune itself.

Nayeon can’t really relate to this shock, having traces of both whatever her parents were and the loud, boisterous personality of a Jupiterian. She doesn’t remember what it was like to acclimatize to the station. She doesn’t offer this information, though, letting Mina think that she’s always been here. It’s easier that way.

She finds herself getting over her initial awkwardness and bad habit of freezing up in front of Mina as they walk and talk, and by the time they enter Mina’s residential wing, Nayeon’s sad that it has to end so quickly. She can only hope Mina feels the same way.

☆

Mina’s cabin, as it turns out, is locked and doesn’t intend to let anyone in. Nayeon watches the doctor try five miserable times to scan her ID chips before the door locks itself and sends a message to security, informing that there was an attempted but unsuccessful break-in. Mina looks helplessly from Nayeon to the door, and then back again.

“Can you wait with me?” Mina asks quietly, looking very worried, and for good reason, too. The corridor is dark, and though Nayeon knows it’s safe, she’d rather Mina not wait outside her cabin for the estate department who might not come at all. They prefer taking warm naps in their offices than actually helping with cabin-related issues.

Nayeon makes a decision, “I don’t think you should stay out here. Do you want to come back with me to my cabin?”

Mina doesn’t respond, and Nayeon stumbles, “I mean, if you want to. I have a cabin to myself so it wouldn’t be a bother or anything. Not saying that you’d be a bother but in case you thought-”

“Thank you, Captain,” smiles the doctor, giving a short bow of her head.

Nayeon likes the way her title rolls off Mina’s tongue. She likes it very much, but she tells herself that it's more important to break the formalities between them than allow herself to listen to Mina call her captain.

“Call me Nayeon.”


	2. apollo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for light smut + blood / injury mentions  
> also the spacings for the italicized speech are rly wonky i hate it lmao i'll fix it soon sorry

 

Q: Why did the Sun go to school?

A: To get brighter!

 

☆

 

“The Sun has already gotten brighter,” Mina points out, following Nayeon into her cabin, shutting the door with a soft click. “It did so forty-six years ago and wiped out all the inner planets and their communications systems.”

 

_ And ruined the lives of millions of inner-planet dwellers, driving the ones who didn’t succumb to radiation into piracy and all sorts of nefarious activity, all to be pointedly ignored by the rest of the solar system.  _ Nayeon grimaces at how well she’d be able to complete her sentence. Trust a doctor to turn a funny joke into something scientific.

 

She turns, deadpan, “It’s a joke, Mina.”

 

“Mina?” Mina repeats, vaguely amused at being addressed as such, and all the blood rushes to Nayeon’s face. She hadn’t realized that this was the first time she’d addressed Mina by her first name, and scrambles to cover it up. It’s not her fault everyone has official titles she has to remember - she doesn’t have much storage space to spare.

 

She has a theory that things would be much easier and comfortable if they didn’t have to address each other so formally all the time. It would cut down on man hours wasted and boost morale, probably. Sadly, her plans for revolutionizing the entire station never get through to upper management, mostly because said plans are rejected by Jihyo the moment she sees the part where Nayeon proposes for Jihyo’s official title and rank to be changed to  _ Pathetic Lightweight Jihyo _ .

 

(In Nayeon’s defense, it’s  _ true _ . Jihyo can’t handle even a sip of Plutonian wine without losing all inhibitions that keep her respectable. It’s actually how she got into Sana’s bed for the first time.)

 

“I’m kidding,” Mina laughs, noticing Nayeon’s terrified expression (turns out she hadn’t gotten over it), patting Nayeon on the back. The contact sends sparks flying up her spine and straight to her face, and she laughs, though she suspects it sounds more like a dying hyena than an actual laugh. Closer to a crazed giggle. “You’re cute.”

 

“Oh,” Nayeon says uselessly. She takes the blanket from her drawer, setting it down on the couch and nodding to her cot, still too awkward to make eye contact with Mina. She can feel the heat radiating off Mina, not unlike a solar flare of her own. Bad analogy, never mind. Nayeon hasn’t quite figured out this hopelessly-attracted-to-Mina thing yet.

“Um. You can have my cot. I’ll take the couch.” She’s not looking forward to spending a night on the couch, but she decides that it’s only polite to give the guest the heated, comfy cot.

 

Mina’s eyes widen comically, taking the blanket from Nayeon hurriedly, “No, it’s fine. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

 

“No,” Nayeon objects stubbornly, “The cot’s yours.”

 

“But-”

 

“No buts,” Nayeon says sternly, pulling the blanket back into her arms, “Just be comfortable, doctor.”

 

She enforces her point by quickly informing Mina that she’s going to the communal washrooms to brush her teeth and wash her face and that there’s a spare bottle of water by the cot if Mina needs it, speaking faster when Mina looks like she might interrupt.

 

Nayeon pretends not to hear the fond laugh Mina lets out as she hurries into the corridor, silently fist-pumping the moment she’s out of sight.

 

☆

 

Nayeon’s hair is damp and cascading over her back, the pilot herself in nothing but a sports bra and a pair of barely-there shorts when she returns to the cabin. She even has that post-workout glow to her, and Mina suspects that she’d gone to the gym at the end of the wing before coming back.

 

Either way, if Mina was groggy and falling asleep beforehand, she’s wide awake now, or as wide awake as she can be in this comfy cot. (It’s warm and soft and Mina’s disappointed that she’d never been in one prior to tonight.)

 

“Sorry if I woke you,” Nayeon whispers apologetically as Mina watches her sleepily from the bed, tiptoeing into the room and setting her things down on the couch. Mina doesn’t say anything, only watches her with half-lidded eyes. She’s so pretty, Mina thinks drowsily, in part the cot’s fault. It’s too comfortable, must be doing things to her head, making her think that this awkward fighter pilot is cute.

 

Well. She  _ is  _ cute. The way she trips over her words around Mina is cute, the way she’d offered to walk Mina back was cute, and the way she’d offered and insisted on Mina taking her cot is even cuter. She’s heard things about Nayeon, mostly from Jihyo who made Nayeon out to sound like a confused puppy who loves flying ships, but none of them could’ve summed up her actual personality, or how much Mina wants to kiss her. Hold her hand, even.

 

“Oh, you’re asleep,” Nayeon sighs, and Mina thinks she sees her smile in the dimness of the room. “Night, doc.”

 

_ Call me Mina _ , Mina thinks sleepily, and then she’s out like a light.

 

☆

 

Nayeon is awoken by Sana preparing coffee in her cabin, and bolts up.

 

“Where’s Mina?” she demands sleepily, and Sana turns around, eyebrows raised and that same mischievous smirk on her lips.

 

“I  _ knew  _ you were a loveless woman, but really, unnie? Sleeping in different beds?” Sana shakes her head.

 

“What?” Nayeon mumbles, hair falling over her face. She’s getting the feeling that Sana is talking about something entirely different from what she’s thinking, and also that she might cry. It’s early in the morning, she’s confused, and Mina doesn’t appear to be in the cot opposite her. Sshe’s beginning to wonder if last night really happened, or if she’d wanted it to.

 

Sana hums, “So, how was the sex? I didn’t peg Dr Myoui to be your type. I guess I thought you’d go for someone like Jeong-”

 

The mere suggestion of sleeping with Jeongyeon feels like a bucket of ice water to the face, in addition to dredging up a bunch of unwanted memories and regrets.

 

“Jesus, no,” Nayeon moans, “I didn’t sleep with her. Her cabin was locked so I offered her my bed- Actually, why are you even in here?”

 

The younger girl avoids the question, though they’re both well aware of Sana’s tendencies to come bug Nayeon any chance she has. It’s endearing but also leads to situations like Nayeon waking up with Sana’s face in her face, which isn’t the most relaxing way to start the day. “Is that what you call these things nowadays?  _ Offering her your bed _ ? Congrats, though.”

 

She waves one of Nayeon’s pink post-its in her general direction, and Nayeon makes out neatly curled handwriting on it. Lunging towards Sana, she snatches it, ignoring Sana when she says that Nayeon’s happier to see it than she is to see Sana.

 

_ Thanks for letting me sleep in your room! Sorry I had to leave early - duty calls :( Let me take you to lunch today. Come look for me in my office when you’re free. :) _

_ \- Mina _

 

☆

 

As it turns out, Nayeon isn’t posted for duty today, not even patrol, which is highly suspicious and a little worrying. Any time she spends away from her ship is a bad time. It’s not that she doesn’t trust the technicians, but she also doesn’t trust anyone who isn’t her near her ship. It’s been with her the last ten years, unchanged save from some equipment changes, and at this point she’s the only one who knows it inside and out. (She won’t let any upstart fresh graduate tell her otherwise.)

 

She placates herself with the knowledge that the other pilots in her fleet are probably back on duty, giving her a break. She doesn’t remember the last time she had a free day, anyway - this fits nicely into her plans to go and fulfil Mina’s lunch proposition.

 

Nothing in life is that straightforward, though, and she groans out loud when Jihyo comes to look for her with a massive stack of papers in her arms.

 

“Nooooo.”

 

“Yes,” Jihyo laughs, clapping her on the back sympathetically. “It’s not much. You just need to sign some stuff, check equipment logs. Just drop by my office when you’re done.”

 

“You’d do it if it were that simple,” Nayeon points out, bottom lip sticking out in what she hopes is a convincing sulk. “You  _ know  _ I hate this.”

 

Jihyo nods impassionately, “I know.”

 

“Then why do this?” Nayeon whines, kicking her legs out. “I could be out flying. Is this because of yesterday? Are you punishing me by grounding me? I’m sorry I was late, now  _ please _ release me from these shackles.”

 

It’s not that rich of an exaggeration. Nayeon would rather fly to Mercury and back on shipment duty (as the days pass and as the solar system quietens, her credentials as a fighter pilot have less and less use) than do paperwork. Paperwork is for the higher-ups whose ships gather dust in the loading bay, and for loser technicians unlucky enough to be posted to traffic control. Part of why she loves this job so much is because it’s all do, less documentation - as things should be.

 

Jihyo only smiles and gently reminds her that she’ll be in her office till the end of the day, and that if she starts earlier she’ll be done quicker. It’s so hard to fight back when your commanding officer also happens to be a childhood friend.

 

☆

 

Dahyun provides Nayeon a welcome break from the paperwork when she asks her to come along with her to traffic control, saying that she wants someone along to pass the time with. (Her short stint with traffic control is over, the higher-ups having decided that she should be moved back to the engineering bay where she’s actually qualified.)

 

The younger girl is uncharacteristically quiet on their walk there, leaving Nayeon to drift in her own thoughts. Mostly about how the last document she was supposed to approve was a junior pilot’s flying license. She hadn’t even recognized the name on the paper. Is she getting  _ that  _ old?

 

“Unnie?” Dahyun voices, and Nayeon is startled out of her reverie. She’d told the entire fleet to drop their honorifics a long time ago, and Dahyun had followed suit, so this is  _ very  _ out of character for her.

 

“Hm?”

 

“I…” Dahyun looks away, her guilty face miraculously close to that of Sana’s. “Never mind. Let’s just get to control.”

 

Nayeon raises her eyebrows but says nothing, knowing that Dahyun will speak when she feels like it. Dahyun is a precocious thing, wise beyond her years and more mature than others anticipate her to be. As a result, she’s somewhat of a false extrovert, rarely offering her true thoughts unless she feels comfortable with revealing them. They’ve been friends long enough for Nayeon to be privy to such an honour, thankfully.

 

They approach the control room, Dahyun scanning her temporary access pass against the port on the wall. The door slides open with a hydraulic hiss, opening into a bustling room with operatives either hollering or whispering hurriedly into headsets. More than half the room is younger than her - Nayeon takes comfort in knowing that the people in charge of bringing her back home safely are also too young to remember the multi-triple conjunction of the outer planets of 3711.

 

She frowns to herself. She sounds like the annoying elderly superiors who’d clicked their tongues at her when she showed up in her first fleet. They’d made her life a nightmare, sent her on impossible missions with impossible deadlines that she’d completed just to spite them.

 

She follows Dahyun through the control station, wondering how deep it goes when the younger girl stops at a desk. They’re deep in enough that there isn’t anyone around.

 

“I saw Sana-unnie and Commander Park together today,” Dahyun says, beginxning to pack up her station.

 

“Oh?” So that’s why Jihyo had thrown all the paperwork on Nayeon’s sorry ass. All this for a girl! And Sana calls Nayeon pathetic for falling for the first girl who smiles at her.

 

“Yep. They were kissing.”

 

“Finally. I thought Jihyo was going to pussyfoot around Sana forever.”

 

“Right,” Dahyun mumbles, “Sana-unnie told me I was her favourite, but I guess she didn’t mean it.”

 

It hits slowly, then all at once.

 

“Dahyun…” She doesn’t know what to say, mostly because she can’t phrase it in a way that won’t hurt Dahyun, but also in a way that makes sense.

 

Deep down, she knew it would come to this, because it’s happened before. Sana is more than sparing with her affection, and it’s easy bait for anyone who cares enough to set their sights on her. It’s not her fault - being nice isn’t a fault - but it isn’t Dahyun’s either.

 

“It’s okay,” the younger girl says. She’s holding her binders and stationery in her arms, expression chirpy. No matter that it doesn’t reach her eyes. “I get it.”  

 

☆

 

“I  _ hate  _ this,” the oldest girl complains, clipping together another sheaf of papers with the binder clips Jihyo graciously provided her. They’re all flight logs and authorization papers, things that fall under jurisdiction despite her being a captain and a fighter pilot and not having any sort of authority whatsoever.

 

Honestly, Jihyo was probably just lazy and tired of paperwork, and she can understand that, because God is the work boring as all hell. She spent two hours signing and acknowledging weapons invoices alone.

 

(And learnt that the Uranus satellite gets more funding for guns than they do, despite having half as many ships. Who manages the budget of this cursed station, Nayeon will never know.)

 

“You’ll be doing a lot more paperwork soon,” Chaeyoung points out, sharing a conspiratorial look with Jeongyeon, who nods.

 

The young pilot is a few years Nayeon’s junior, but it doesn’t stop her from speaking to her as an equal. It’s one of the reasons Nayeon had liked her enough to recommend her for a promotion to Jihyo when Chaeyoung was still a trainee pilot - the other trainees had shied away from Nayeon’s very shadow, though it may also be because Nayeon didn’t hesitate to criticize most of them to the moon and back. How do you expect to be able to graduate when you can’t tell your fixed engines from your drop-away rockets?

 

“What?”

 

“Jihyo didn’t tell you?” Jeongyeon tilts her head, rolling her ring between her fingers, and Nayeon wonders how the two of them seem to be clued in when she’s barely floating in the deep end. “You’re up for a promotion. How do you like the sound of  _ Commander Im _ ?”

 

“Who told you this?” Nayeon says, feeling alarm bells start to go off in her head. She can’t say she doesn’t like the sound of  _ Commander Im _ , but it’s the responsibilities entailing the post that stress her out.

 

“Jihyo.” Jeongyeon looks sheepish, “You, uh, probably shouldn’t tell her we told you this.”

 

“...I need to go.”

 

☆

 

It’s half-past lunchtime when the door to Mina’s office swings open, and in storms Nayeon.

 

Mina looks up, a smile on her lips, ready to ask what took her so long when she notices Nayeon’s expression.

 

The pilot’s tone is flat when she sinks into the chair opposite Mina’s.

 

“Did you know Jihyo’s office is two doors down from yours?”

 

Mina’s happy words stop short in her throat, “Nayeon? What’s going on?”

 

“Nothing,” Nayeon says bitterly, and her eyes are shimmering with tears when she eventually makes eye contact. She suddenly looks very small, and Mina is struck with the overwhelming urge to pull her close, protect her best as she can.

 

Nayeon smiles, but it’s shaky and ashamed, “Can we get lunch?”

 

☆

 

Lunch is a quiet affair. They walk to the senior officers’ lounge in silence, Mina flashing a lieutenant’s insignia at the door and nodding politely at the starry-eyed majors and commanders who trip over themselves to greet her. She tells Nayeon to stay put as she goes to get them lunch, but she’s back in half a minute with two trays of food.

 

Nayeon stands to help Mina, but she shakes her head, “Sit down, I can handle it.”

 

Nayeon sits back down, Mina smiling at her and setting down the two trays. It’s much better fare than Nayeon is used to, and she takes a moment to survey what’s in front of her in sheer wonder and envy. So this is where the budget is going.

 

“Maybe accepting the promotion won’t be such a shitty thing after all,” Nayeon laughs bitterly.

 

Mina doesn’t say anything, just tucks into her food and gives Nayeon a look that encourages her to keep talking. Maybe she’s just imagining the whole thing, because there’s no way anyone would be this open to listening to what’s bothering her. The most she expected out of Mina was a pitying look, and she tells herself she’s a fool for thinking anything else.

 

“I’m due for a promotion, and it fucking sucks,” she says miserably.

 

“And why’s that so bad?” Mina leans forward curiously, and wet eyes meet hers.

 

“It’s the same thing as being grounded.” Nayeon blinks hard, “Have you seen Jihyo? She flies once a week, if she’s lucky. Getting a promotion would be like getting grounded. I can’t… I can’t lose my ship.”

 

☆

 

Sometimes, she dreams. It’s never intentional and always unwanted, her brain making it a point to show her a dozen visualizations she didn’t ask for, of what she could have been, of what she is.

 

At the end of it, she’s always left wondering about what could’ve been, and she hates it.

 

☆

 

“Thank you,” Nayeon breathes, nails digging into her thighs, “for listening to me.”

 

Mina has made it a point not to speak throughout Nayeon’s promotion crisis, only nodding along and asking for clarifications when she needed them, and she casts a sharp eye over Nayeon now, “I think you should talk to Commander Park about this. You can make sure you get more field assignments if you negotiate.”

 

“That’d be selfish of me,” Nayeon says wistfully, but the look in her eye tells Mina that she wants to do exactly that. “The others would have to pick up the slack.”

 

She shakes her head, looking more peppy and much less burdened, and Mina can’t help but smile admiringly. “You know what? It’s okay. I’ll figure it out on my own. Thanks, doc.”

 

“Nayeon?” Mina says suddenly.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“I like you a lot.”

 

Nayeon blinks, looking terrified, and then stammers out, “Me too.”

 

☆

 

As the youngest ever graduate of the Jupiterian Flight Academy, it should come as no surprise that Nayeon’s a fast learner. Here are some things that she learns on the way back to Mina’s room:

 

  1. Mina, for how poised she looks, is absolute rubbish at keeping her hands to herself when she’s excited. Not even when there are people around, as she realizes when Mina pulls her in to kiss her in a crowded transporter cabin.
  2. Mina is a biter and a scratcher - she nips twice at Nayeon’s bottom lip, and tears her nails down the back of Nayeon’s shirt when Nayeon presses her into the wall.
  3. She lets Nayeon do that because she’s too caught up in trying to undo her bra with one hand, not because she’s content with being dominated. She flips their positions swiftly as both Nayeon’s shirt and bra fall to the ground, hand slipping in between Nayeon’s legs and smirking when Nayeon gasps out loud.



 

Personally, Nayeon finds it a lesson well spent, if you don’t count that the only thing Mina learns is that Nayeon cries when she comes.

 

☆

 

The clock reads that it’s late afternoon when she opens her eyes, but the first thing she thinks about is Mina’s hands.

 

Mina is hunched over a tablet beside Nayeon, oblivious to her surroundings. She’s still undressed, naked except for the sheets, and Nayeon’s mouth positively waters as she takes in the sight of her bare back. Her hands itch with the memory of Mina’s body, and she wonders how much time they’d waste if she pulled her close now, pressed her lips to the bruised column of her neck.

 

“Howdy,” she says, because it’s the first word that pops to her mind and she’s too blissed out to think about sounding stupid.

 

Mina sits up, turning back with a smile and putting away her tablet.

 

“Hey.” She’s beautiful. So beautiful. Nayeon smiles wider, so happy and relaxed that for a moment, she forgets that she’s technically still on duty and still has work to do.

 

Fuck it. That junior pilot will have to wait for his license.

 

She makes grabby hands for Mina, whining when Mina dodges her. The doctor giggles, vaulting off the bed and scurrying to the corner, where she has enough time to pull on a pair of underwear before Nayeon jumps her again.

 

They fall to the floor, Nayeon getting in a good tickle or two before Mina is screaming and begging for mercy. And because she’s a weakling, she lets go when Mina begs, actually believing that she’ll play fair before Mina digs her fingers into her stomach.

 

“Fuck,” she yelps, screaming bloody murder when Mina’s fingers graze over her thighs (she has no idea how they got that low). She doesn’t know how she got this sensitive but she struggles anyway, “Please, oh my God-”

 

Just like that, she’s pinned to the ground by her wrists, Mina hovering over her like a vision. Mina grins victoriously, and it shows her teeth and Nayeon is  _ really  _ whipped.

 

“Beg for mercy,” Mina murmurs, leaning in to ghost her lips over Nayeon’s. Nayeon shudders. No amount of combat training could’ve prepared her for this, frankly.

 

“Never,” Nayeon gasps, shrieking when Mina rubs hard circles into her inner thigh.

 

“Never?” The hard rubs go higher, and Nayeon accidentally lets out a moan in the process. It wasn’t her fault - Mina wasn’t playing fair! - but Mina rears back regardless, a confused smirk playing on her lips.

 

Nayeon squeezes her eyes shut, desperately trying to laugh off the situation, “I swear, doc, you’re going way too hard on me.”

 

Mina’s breath ghosts over her lips, and her smile is teasing, playful, “Maybe I am.”

 

The kiss she was expecting never comes, and Nayeon opens her eyes to see Jihyo standing in the doorway. Her commander looks like this isn’t the first couple she’s had to break up today, arms crossed and the look on her face saying  _ I trained years for this. _

 

Mina scrambles off Nayeon, grabbing at the shirt she’d dropped on the floor, and Nayeon stares at the ceiling and sighs.

 

“Lieutenant Myoui,” Jihyo shields her eyes from the very much half-dressed Mina, and then nods politely at Nayeon, though her gaze is steely. “Captain Im.”

 

“ _ Please  _ have a good reason as to why you’re here,” Nayeon sighs.

 

“I was looking for you,” Jihyo replies, bowing in respect when Mina makes herself presentable and visible again. “I couldn’t find you in your cabin, and Major Kang said she saw you going off with Lieutenant Myoui, so I thought to look here first.”

 

Nayeon can tell that Jihyo’s trying not to smile — the same smirk that Jihyo has on whenever she knows she has Nayeon backed into a corner, or that she’s found new things to make fun of Nayeon over. It’s equal parts infuriating and amusing, and has been a game between the two of them since forever.

 

Jihyo bats her lashes innocently, “I wasn’t interrupting anything, was I?”

 

“No-” 

 

Nayeon surges up in protest, “Yes-”

 

“ _ No _ ,” Mina says firmly, affixing Nayeon with a look loaded with authority that makes her weak in the knees. “Of course not, Commander.”

 

“Great! You don’t mind if I steal Captain Im from you, right?”

 

Nayeon looks at Mina helplessly as Jihyo comes closer, but Mina smiles and nods accommodatingly.

 

“By all means, go ahead. I’ll see you soon, Captain.”

 

☆

 

Jihyo switches from laughing to serious as they walk out of Mina’s cabin, Nayeon still trying to hype herself up enough to go back to her work, despite how suddenly she was pulled away from her happiness.

 

“I know you’re mad about your promotion.”

 

Nayeon opens her mouth, ready to ask  _ Who told you _ ?, before settling with the knowledge that she’ll always be neither here nor there, never quite in the know. She shrugs.

 

“I’ll explain it in greater detail later, I swear,” Jihyo promises, “but for now we need you on call. Captain Chou was critically injured this afternoon on a routine patrol to the Andromeda Galaxy. A hostile unidentified ship shot her down and would’ve killed her if not for the shots she managed to shoot back before passing out. She’s being flown back as we speak, but we suspect that whatever attacked her is coming closer and might try to launch attacks on nearby stars. We’re thinking the outer planets - the Pluto Pathfinder satellite has already reported abnormal activity.”

 

They make it to the loading bay, and Nayeon grabs her uniform, unashamedly stripping off and putting it on. She takes the news in her stride, swallowing the shock that came with Jihyo’s initial announcement. It’ll be a cold day in hell before she mismanages the expressions on her face. Both of them know this. Instead, the gears in her head spin, and she vocalizes her understanding, “You want me to accept the promotion so I can hold down the fort from you.”

 

“No. Not quite. You’re the best fighter pilot we have,” her commander says, and the sort of reverence she holds in her tone makes Nayeon’s chest swell with pride, “I’d prefer if you went in the field - I’ll stay back and coordinate. Captain Hirai and Captain Minatozaki will join you. I want you to accept the promotion so you can properly serve as their commanding officer and leader.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“I’ve already smoothened out the details and gotten your promotion approved, all you have to do is-” Jihyo stops at Nayeon’s affirmation, pleasantly surprised, “You’ll do it?”

 

Nayeon nods, “Yeah.”

 

An insignia patch is pressed into her hand, and Nayeon curls her fingers around it, testing the weight of it, pressing her fingertips into the edges. The glory hasn’t set in yet, but she doesn’t have the time for that right now, already ready to go, go, go.

 

She pulls off the captain’s insignia, replacing it with the new patch before she finger-guns Jihyo.

 

“Can I stop calling you Commander Park now?”

 

Jihyo rolls her eyes.

 

☆

 

“Nayeon!” Momo cheers when she sees her, enveloping her in a warm hug. Momo has this way of embracing people that makes you feel like you’re on top of the world. She once wrangled a confession out of a pirate just by hugging him. The man was blubbering the moment they came into contact, and Momo continues to use it in her arsenal of interrogative tactics, even if higher command deems it inappropriate.

 

Momo’s hair is all over the place, but the pilot herself is spunky as ever, practically vibrating as she tells Nayeon all about her misadventures on the Jupiter moon she’d crash-landed on (“The natives were very nice but I have a feeling I wasn’t welcome, y’know?”) and asks Nayeon about Sana’s whereabouts.

 

“No idea.”

 

“Maybe she’s getting a goodbye kiss from Jihyo,” Momo simpers, and she must catch Nayeon’s bewildered look, because she snorts. “They’re  _ so  _ obvious, come on.”

 

Sana herself shows up a while later, hair tousled and out of it enough that she gets a helmet that’s several sizes too big. Momo and Nayeon just wolf-whistle, and Sana pouts, lips visibly swollen.

 

☆

 

Jihyo and Mina show up as they’re about to get into their ships - they’re parked side by side for maximum convenience - to wish them luck. Well, Jihyo comes to wish them luck. Mina just comes to peck Nayeon on the cheek before running off.

 

Momo and Sana stare at Nayeon’s rapidly reddening face before bursting out into laughter.

 

“Niice,” Sana giggles, dodging Nayeon’s punch.

 

“Fuck off,” Nayeon growls.

 

Sana pouts and looks to Jihyo, “Commander, the mean lady just swore.” 

 

Jihyo sighs, “ _The_ _mean lady_ is your new commander.” This prompts both Sana and Momo to do a comical double take and check out the insignia patch on Nayeon’s sleeve.

 

“No,” Momo gasps.

 

“Yes,” Nayeon narrows her eyes at the two of them. They make themselves scarce, Sana mumbling that she needs to run pre-flight checks and Momo saying something about checking her ship’s pantry, leaving Jihyo and Nayeon alone. Or as alone as someone can be in the loading bay.

 

“So.”

 

“So,” Jihyo rubs her hands together, avoiding her eyes, “I’ll, uh, see you when you get back.”

 

Nayeon scratches at the back of her neck. It hasn’t been this awkward between them in  _ years _ , and it feels like something is going unsaid, or that Jihyo is keeping something from her.

 

She decides to question it later, opting to clap Jihyo on the back and bid her goodbye before she hurries into her ship for pre-flight checks of her own.  

 

☆

 

The first part of the flight is uneventful. With the transmissions set up and Momo and Sana’s faces splashed across her communications panel, she flies easy, leading the pack as they make their way past the rest of the outer planets. She takes the time to appreciate the sights - she’s not posted to this circuit often, the other is much less scenic, with most of the natural beauty of the planets having been stripped away by the heat of the sun - gazing out of her glass windows. She’s spent so much time in the station that she’d begun to forget how the other planets looked like.

 

Other than an amusing stretch of time where Momo gets caught in the icy rings of Saturn and has her navigation panel bricked, which leads her having to rely on Sana and Nayeon’s instructions to fly out of it, there’s not much to do. Even watching the planets gets tiring after a while.

 

She keeps an eye out for the satellites and colonies out of sheer curiosity. If she squints, she thinks she can see Mina’s home satellite orbiting Neptune, and the tiny human colony on Neptune that bobs along its entirely water-covered surface. She wonders if Mina misses home. Does she miss home like some of their elderly miss Earth? It’s foolish, she thinks, to have attachment to a dead planet, and she can’t wrap her head around it. Why would anyone want to go back to Earth? It was their home once, but that was decades ago. A spoilt planet is no home, not for anyone.

 

_ Or maybe you’re just bitter that you have no home _ , the snide voice in her head remarks, and she grinds her teeth. The Apollo-Jupiter satellite is her home, she tells herself. It’s home. It’s  _ her  _ home. It’s home...  

 

☆

 

“ _ Unnie _ .” Sana’s voice echoes in the cockpit, and Nayeon unmutes her own mic, well aware that they have to be ready. They’re passing by the Pluto Pathfinder satellite, the place where some of the bandits are suspected to be targeting, and Nayeon flicks on her automatic targeting system. Pulls her phaser out from under the dashboard.

 

Just in case.

 

“Do you see anything?” Nayeon murmurs, staring intently ahead.

 

“ _ I have a bad feeling, _ ” Sana says quietly. “ _ There are some blips on my screen. It’s not a signature I recognize. _ ”

 

“ _ Me too _ ,” Momo pipes up, and Nayeon stares at her dashboard in confusion. Her ship’s right in front, so it doesn’t make sense that there’s nothing on her own navigational panel. She slaps it gently, the bad whispering feeling growing worse as Sana continues to report on the abnormalities.

 

A blast rocks through the left side of her ship, throwing her out of her seat, and in hindsight, Nayeon misses the boring inner planet circuit.

 

☆

 

Almost instantly, her ship goes into a tailspin, and Nayeon is ejected from her seat across the cockpit. Warnings pop up on her screen warning her of a threat, voiced by an eerily calm female voice (as if Nayeon didn’t realize she was in danger), and Nayeon has no choice but to hold on for dear life as the ship rocks messily. She thinks she hears Sana and Momo yelling out for her, the two of them engaging their guns, she’s not sure. She can barely muster the energy to stand up, the blast still ringing in her ears.

 

Another blast tears through the fuselage, throwing her backwards, and she lands badly on her back, her head colliding with the door of the cockpit. She fights back the urge to throw up in her helmet, instead trying to right herself, adrenaline pumping through her veins. The ship is still reeling from the force of the blow, and she can make out the shapes of Momo and Sana’s ships surging ahead to cover her. She’s thankful, but she knows it will only buy her so much time.

 

Crackling sounds come from her navigation panel as it seems to realize that it’d been fed a loop, and Nayeon curses. She’s not sure what sort of jammer virus was fed to her ship, but it can’t be good, not with the way it’s sparking. She pulls herself up, the hole in the fuselage glaringly obvious and terrifying her, but reminds herself to stay calm.

 

_ Remember your training  _ \- she crawls over to her dashboard, thanking every god and deity that it’s still untouched. The back half of the cockpit is a smoldering mess, but that doesn’t matter now. She has to get out of this ship before she gets blown up with it. Forcing her hands to be stable, she firmly presses the distress button.

 

“ _ Nayeon?”  _ Jihyo’s voice echoes in her helmet, “ _ God, thank God, you’re alive. _ ”

 

“Jihyo,” Nayeon knows Jihyo can see her up close, every bit of her icily cool features being blown up on a screen back at base. She keeps moving, deactivating anything that could be used against her, deploying the backup ship and praying that it wasn’t destroyed. The ship is teetering, making her feel unstable, small, scared.

 

She has to keep moving.

 

“Jihyo, tell me what to do.” The panel beeps in acknowledgement of Nayeon’s latest command, and there’s a sharp metallic whirr as the emergency capsule is deployed. “How are Momo and Sana?”

 

_ “Not good,”  _ Jihyo admits, and there’s a long exhale from her before she goes,  _ “Nayeon, I need you to stay calm _ .”

 

The floor opens up, and Nayeon hops into the emergency capsule, the capsule detaching from the ship just as the entire thing gives way and shatters like glass, parts spreading out in all directions as a devastating blast rips through it. She bids goodbye to it, “I am calm.”

 

 _“I’m going to send you Sana’s coordinates_. _She needs help._ _The ship that was attacking you is gone - go look for Sana and back her up._ ”

 

The controls take getting used to, especially when her head and body are still aching from the memory of the blast, but the coordinates scrolling across her visor ground her. She punches them in, the capsule taking off at the speed of light. It’s much lighter than her ship, which means that she’s able to go much faster, and she grits her teeth, tapping the communications panel open.

 

Jihyo has gone silent on the other line, and Nayeon sneaks a glance at the panel to see the status of Momo’s ship. Momo seems to be holding her own well, but she can’t connect to Sana’s ship, which either means Sana’s too busy to approve the connection or that there isn’t a ship to liaise with any more.

 

She chooses to believe the former.

 

She makes out a cloud ships duking it out, circling each other, blasts erupting from their guns, and she thinks her heart stops when she sees the massive pirate ship.

 

“Jihyo, what is this?” Nayeon says shakily, pushing the throttle forward. Her guns deploy easily, and she sneaks in a few shots before the larger ship can react and turn. She makes out where Sana’s ship is. The fuselage has been blown open in some small spots, though Sana’s otherwise hardy ship is still flying. She can’t see Sana, though, and prays that the younger girl is okay.

 

The pirate ship pivots, and Nayeon trembles.

 

“Jihyo. What is this?”

 

There’s tapping on the line, presumably Jihyo bringing up information, and then, “ _ It’s not a registered ship, but it looks like a pirate ship. It matches the description of the Mayday, a repurposed military ship that was once the IFS Unity. We’re not sure who’s on the ship _ .”

 

“I know,” Nayeon whispers, “It’s my parents’ ship.”

 

☆

 

She dodges the first five blasts that come her way. The guns fire in a way that she knows all too well, crimson red laser bursts sent with the intent to kill. She steels herself, heading straight into the blasts, pulling her steering wheel back and forth till she’s nauseous and sick. The slick movements of the cabin help, but she can’t help but feel ill anyway.

 

Jihyo is silent except to give her more information - that Sana’s vitals are stable, that Momo successfully fought off a few smaller ships, and that the  _ Mayday  _ had been returning from a heist committed in the Andromeda Galaxy. The rest of the time is spent in calculated silence, but Nayeon trusts Jihyo with her life. She doesn’t doubt that she’s working as hard as she can to keep them alive and bring them back home.

 

And Nayeon wants the same, so bad, wants to bring all of them home. This is the first time that she’s scared that she won’t get home, and she hates it. She’s worked for so long to work off that fear, and now it’s back in full force.

 

Sana’s voice comes in her helmet, “ _ Unnie _ !”

 

She sounds like she’s been crying, and Nayeon nearly breaks at the sound of her voice. She hadn’t realized how afraid she was up till now, even though Jihyo had confirmed that Sana was fine. A small part of her hadn’t really believed it, because nothing escapes the  _ Mayday _ , nothing, the only thing to ever leave it was a seven year-old girl who dreamt of becoming a fighter pilot-

 

“Hold on,” she breathes, forcing the throttle forward, and then she’s surging forward, Sana’s cries going unheard as she goes faster, faster, faster.

 

☆

 

She crashes straight into the cockpit of the pirate ship, shattering glass and holding on as tight as she can as the guns spin out of control. The material of her capsule holds, and Nayeon is lightheaded, crashing through the cockpit and pulling it back, reversing, speeding out of it, because the large ship itself is losing control of itself and Nayeon can’t be here when it destroys itself.

 

It’s over. Her mouth is bleeding from the impact and she thinks her nose might be broken, but it’s over. She pulls out sharply, breaking more glass and clenching on to the controls so hard her knuckles burn a fierce white. The engine roars in response, and then she’s out, trembling in her seat.

 

“ _ Nayeon?! _ ” It’s not Jihyo, it’s Mina and Nayeon dazedly wonders how she managed to get into the control room. Maybe she’s dead now and this is heaven, or the final glimpses of the best moments of her life before she blinks out for good. And for this to happen just as she met Mina… it’s a pity, really, but she always knew it would come down to this.

 

The life of a fighter pilot is a short and tragic one, but she’s willing to accept it if it means she managed to protect Sana and Momo in the process.

 

In its death throes, the pirate ship sends a blast that rips straight through Nayeon’s capsule, and she isn’t so lucky this time. It shreds the fuselage like a hot knife through butter, and Nayeon is caught in the middle of it.

 

She’s thrown out into open space like a ragdoll. A cold piece of shrapnel goes straight through her chest, and she chokes on her own bubbling blood. It’s warm going into her nose, and Nayeon goes limp, the sights and sounds around her fading to a sharp, all-consuming blackness.

 

The piece of metal in her chest is cold inside her, but she figures it won’t matter anymore.

 

“ _ Please stay with me,”  _ Mina begs, and she’s sobbing,  _ “Please. _ ”

 

Nayeon closes her eyes.

  
  
  



	3. pathfinder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for smut + graphic descriptions of injuries + traumatic flashbacks

Memories. Fleeting and lingering, coming and going. Real and unreal.

The hum of the ship beneath her skin. She’s strapped down. Can’t move. First responders tell her not to. Mouths open teeth bared eyes out.

☆

She gasps as she’s pulled up by the collar, coming eye-to-eye with a stern-faced sailor.

“Captain Park!” he yells. Tears well up in her eyes from the sheer volume, legs kicking out forcefully in protest, “We have a stowaway!”

There’s a buzz of noise through the storage cabin as the other sailors pausing to eye her and whisper amongst themselves. They're just curious, but she can't help but suspect ulterior motives, because everyone in her life has had plenty of those. The sailors aren't malicious. Mostly because she doesn’t match the profile of a typical Jupiterian brat trying to hitch a ride across the solar system. Nor is she old enough to have formulated rebellious plans to escape elsewhere, so it gives them pause. In hindsight, it saves her life.

She shivers from the cold. She doesn’t want to be here. The sailor’s hands are hard on her shoulders, reminding her of who she fled, and she’s scared, so, so scared. To think that she’s come so far only to stop now… Will they return her like a defective toy? Her bottom lip trembles, but she tells herself that she has to be brave.

The sailors part to make way for their captain, and Nayeon lowers her gaze, terrified that one mistake will mean the end of her.

“Show her to me.”

☆

“What we don’t understand is how you got there,” the man says, palms folded. He eyes Nayeon with an apologetic look, and Nayeon knows that they wouldn’t be doing this if not for the furious innkeeper in the room with them. “Do you want to explain it again, a little clearer this time?”

“They lost me,” nine year-old Nayeon says brightly, thinking of how she’d snuck under the noses of her minders, played them for fools, “I kicked them out of the shuttle and-”

“Preposterous,” the innkeeper interrupts, waving a haughty hand to dismiss all of Nayeon’s claims. Nayeon scrunches her face up - how is she supposed to tell the truth if  _everyone_ thinks she’s lying? “Mr Park, you have the flight logs. You know what happened. She came to  _my_ inn from some plane her parents took her on and then she wrecked my inn. I don’t know why she keeps bringing up these fanciful stories about  _unsupervised flying._ ”

The man nods diplomatically, a look that Nayeon will later realize has been passed down to Jihyo, “I understand that you’re angry, but our flight logs and black box recordings actually show that Nayeon took the ship on a joyride. She didn’t come with a tour group like you said.”

“But her parents-”

“-Nayeon is an orphan, I am her legal guardian-”

“She’s nine years old, she couldn’t have-”

“-Nayeon is talented -”

“If she’s so smart,” the woman snaps, eye twitching indignantly, “then how come you aren’t holding her accountable for  _thousands_ in property damage? My fence was ripped apart, my cows escaped-”

“Because, as you brought up earlier, she is nine years old.” Jihyo’s (and as far as Nayeon is concerned, her own) father says calmly. “We’re terribly sorry for the damage, and we’ll pay to replace the cows, but as far as I’m concerned, you have no business trying to sue Nayeon.”

The innkeeper bristles, and for a moment Nayeon is afraid that she might jump over the desk and try to throttle Mr Park. She gets into a fighting stance in her plush seat, just in case, but the woman huffs something about unsupervised flying again before storming out of the room. She slams the door on her way out.

Mr Park shakes his head as the door shuts, and Nayeon pipes up, “You believe me, right?”

He nods. “Of course. I’m sorry you had to sit through that.”

“She’s mean,” the little girl points out, not wrong, and the man laughs, leaning across to ruffle her hair fondly.

“Yes, she is.”

Nayeon chirps something about wanting to go find Jihyo to play with, and runs out of the room.

The third adult in the room laughs, unsticking herself from the wall where she’d watched the entire powwow, “Is she really that talented?”

“She figured out how to fly a military warship. I don’t know about you, but that’s pretty talented.”

The woman shakes her head, “You really love her, don’t you?”

“Like my own flesh and blood,” he replies, because he does.

☆

(Nayeon never figures out how she knows of that conversation.)

☆

She’s sixteen and graduating the next moment, heart thumping in her chest as she waits in line to receive her badge, reminding herself to keep her knees loose so she doesn’t faint.

The boy beside her - his name is Changkyun, he’s twenty and has kind eyes and was her partner through the defensive flying module, he was on the fast track programme but not nearly as fast as she was - is trembling slightly, swaying back and forth. She's not sure if it's out of excitement or fear. Probably a healthy mix of both - their instructors always emphasize on the effectiveness of that.

Nayeon wants to put out her hand to steady him, but the dean is making his way down the line, so she tries to send Changkyun good vibes instead. Her skin feels like it’s burning up the closer the dean comes to shaking her hand and giving her the badge.

Childish excitement fills her - she’s only had the chance to admire pilot's badges on her instructors and the pilots she meets in the station. To think that she’ll be getting a badge of her own, sharp smooth edges and gold plating and all, is a beautiful thing.

Today is the end of an era and a beginning of a new one. Tomorrow, she begins flying under the best instructors in the Apollo-Jupiter complex as Corporal Im Nayeon. Who knows what the next few years might bring? She’s been taught not to count her supernovas before they explode, but she can feel it. Success is her birthright - it was always hers to have and experienced. Greatness flows in her blood, even if no one else has realized it yet.

Chin up, she tells herself. Draw your shoulders back and smile. You'll never be helpless again.

☆

Alone, breathing erratic, crying into her hands. There’s frantic knocking on the door, she can’t answer it or Jihyo will come in and pull her bottle of pills away from her. She can’t fail at the one thing that’s within her control.

She leaves behind a massive burden, filled with testimonies and hypotheses of why she chose to take her life, but right now, she doesn't care. She feels bad for leaving this behind for Jihyo and the technicians to clean up. Jeongyeon will have fun dissecting her, probably, that’s what Jeongyeon does, right? She’ll find out what exactly is wrong with her.

The door to her cabin flies open, the hinges squeaking in protest. The pills are halfway through her system, and she chokes on water, desperately trying to keep them down, her heart says  _no no no_ but she knows she wants to. She’s sick and tired of this, of being treated like a pariah and being told she doesn’t belong. She doesn’t, not really, but it hurts to know that other people agree with her.

She’s dragging her fleet down with them, gonna wind up killing all of them no matter how hard she tries not to. A disaster, a monster unto herself, better off dead. Fling her into the stratosphere and leave her there to burn. She would be happier off like that anyway.

She remembers her instructor's harsh words, and clamps her eyes shut. She's supposed to be the prodigy who learns without having to be taught. This is an insult to her, or at least, it feels like one.

Strong hands shake her, Jihyo crying and begging her to stay with her. The world slows down.

_What did you do to yourself?_

Nayeon looks down to see an iron bar protruding from her chest.

The scene changes.

☆

“What do you think of Dahyun?”

They’re in the rec room adjacent to the equipment room. Funny place to put a rec room, but there’s nowhere aboard the station where the engine and takeoff sounds from the ships don’t bleed through the walls. It's the one place they can kick back properly, without the constant reminder of where they are.

They’re leaning back on beanbags, Sana nursing an alcoholic drink that Nayeon suspects is just carbonated water and tomato juice. There’s an idle silence hanging in the air, and the only reason Nayeon broke it was out of sheer curiosity, not any innate hunger to find closure for Dahyun.

Sana, as blindsided as she is by the sudden question, doesn’t miss a beat. “She’s my favourite junior pilot.”

“ _Favourite junior pilot?_ ” Nayeon echoes mockingly, pitching her voice higher, “Is that all she is to you?”

“Don’t make it weird, unnie,” Sana scolds, though there’s no bite to her words and she’s smiling a fool, no doubt thinking about their stern-faced commander. “Why the interrogation, anyway?”

“Nothing,” Nayeon dismisses, curiosity sufficiently sated, not noticing the way Sana disintegrates the moment she takes her eyes off her, “It’s nothing.”

☆

“This is my last coat,” Mina gasps as Nayeon kisses down her throat, backing her up against the door of her cabin. The doors slide open, and they tumble inside. Mina’s nails scratch at her back, and Nayeon growls possessively into her mouth.

“Does it matter?” Nayeon smirks, tugging insistently on the hem of Mina’s pants. She feels so good against her, and Nayeon can’t stop thinking about how happy she is, Mina with her, pressed up against her. It ranks on her top ten experiences, easily.

“It doesn’t,” Mina agrees, knees weakening as Nayeon locks their lips together again. Nayeon is usually sweet, understanding and pliant, letting Mina take the lead. She’s learnt not to underestimate Nayeon, though. Because the girl in front of her, as harmless and dumb as she is and has earnt her place on the station just like the rest of them. The expedition was plain proof of that, and Mina tells herself that she can’t let go of this. “Nothing has since you died.”

Nayeon freezes. “What did you say?”

Mina’s eyes are glazed over, and her voice sounds like a thousand tongues at once when she speaks. Mist fogs out of her mouth, choking Nayeon, filthy and winding its way into her lungs, toxic and smoldering. She tries to cough it back up, but fails.

“Don’t you remember?” Mina hisses, “You died yesterday.”

                                                                       ☽

One, two, three.

Mina busies herself with prepping the OR, pushing her thoughts away from the three injured pilots that are being flown back as they speak. She hadn’t trusted herself to be on the first responders team, and frankly, she knows it was the right decision. No one had questioned her decision (no one was in the position to). They'd go and stabilize the casualties. She’d stay back and get ready for what will turn out to be the goriest surgery in a while.

That’s the plan.

The mounted radio crackles with static before a first responder’s voice comes on, updating everyone listening on the conditions of the casualties. Mina can hear Nayeon’s fleetmates - Chaeyoung and Tzuyu - speaking in the background. They’d volunteered to fly  the first responders out the moment news broke. Tzuyu even ignored her indignant doctor’s orders to stay in bed and recuperate.

There's a joke somewhere about fighter pilots being stubborn, but Mina can't bring herself to laugh right now.

One, two, three.

Listening to the transmission, Mina understands and processes the information given. Captain Hirai is in stable condition, with a gnarly wound from shrapnel in her upper thigh, but bleeding is minimal, the femoral artery going untouched. She’s otherwise pristine. A little shaken up, as expected, but comfortable enough to be sitting up and drinking something hot.

Captain Minatozaki, meanwhile, is in critical condition, breathing but unconscious. Impact wounds to the abdomen and head, a broken arm and dislocated shoulder. Her heart rate is irregular, but she’s not in danger of coding anytime soon. Or so he says - Mina has full faith in him, but the negative voice in her head warns her to anticipate the worst.

The line is quiet for a while before the responder continues speaking, and there's a reason why he'd left this to the last part. Mina has to curl her fingers into her scrubs to keep herself from screaming.

Commander Im has already coded once in the back of the first responder ship, and has a massive puncture wound through her chest. The offender was shrapnel from her ship, a long iron bar that punched through her suit like it was nothing. The responder doesn’t sound enthusiastic about her chances of survival.

He notes that they’d decided not to head for the Neptune satellite for surgery on the basis that the Neptune satellite is woefully understaffed for this sort of emergency. Mina screams, raw and hurt and  _guilty,_ because maybe if she was there Nayeon would have a better chance of surviving. She can’t leave her now, not when they just met, not when Nayeon is the most earnest and kind person Mina has met in a while. They barely know each other but Mina cares  _so much_ for her.

“We suspect a punctured lung,” the EMT sighs, “Vitals are shaky.”

The transmission clicks off, and Mina shakes and cries until she’s certain she can stand again. There’s no room for weakness, and she uses the time now to get all of it out. She’s lucky to have time to prepare - she knows Jihyo didn’t have the luxury of time, that the commander’s currently stretched thin in headquarters coordinating the effort. Neither did Chaeyoung and Tzuyu, who gave their services selflessly the moment they heard the news. Neither did Nayeon, Sana, and Momo.

Mina knows they can hang on - and then it’ll be up to her to save them.

 _Everything I can,_ she promises herself, picking herself up, and prepares.

                                                                       ☽

She hears them before she sees them, the rough screech of wheels against the medical wing’s waxed floors echoing through the corridors. There’s no warning before everything splinters at the seams, but Mina is prepared, holding the door open and rushing to her station as they wheel Nayeon in. She thinks she sees Momo and Sana being rushed to the operating rooms on either side of this one, the doors swinging shut and everyone leaping into action.

The anesthesiologist straps the oxygen mask over Nayeon’s bloodied face as her vitals are hooked up, and Mina steels herself before diving in. Her bones ache with something familiar, but she ignores it. What matters is the here and now.

                                                                       ☽

Nayeon codes again as she’s going under, and it takes thirty minutes of shocks and frantic movements before her heartbeat stabilizes again. Mina’s eyes are glazed over the entire time as she gives carefully worded instructions, working the defibrillator like a woman with magic at her fingertips. She’s never been under this amount of pressure before, but she tucks all her panic into a little box and throws it away. There will be time for emotion later.

“She’s survived two heart attacks,” the surgeon opposite her notes grimly, peeling the cut halves of Nayeon’s suit apart to reveal the puncture wound. “She won’t make it past a third one.”

Mina surveys the horrific wound for a few seconds, the other surgeons lapsing into the same sort of ‘oh fuck’ silence, then shakes her head determinedly. Yes, Nayeon has suffered two heart attacks, but the fact that she isn’t dead when she has a metal bar in her chest, millimetres from her heart means that she’s hanging on. She’s upheld her part of the bargain, stayed alive when the odds were against her, and it’s their job to pull her up by her fingertips and make sure she gets to see another day.

Nayeon’s eyelids twitch, and for a moment Mina deludes herself into thinking that Nayeon’s winking. It would be just like her to do that.

Her words are muffled behind her mask, but they hear her loud and clear.

“No.” She traces the first incision, hands steady, “We’re not losing her today.”

One, two, three.

                                                                       ☽

Cheers and loud cries erupt from the rooms next to them two hours apart from each other, first from Captain Hirai’s operating room, then Captain Minatozaki’s.

“Captain Hirai said Commander Im threw herself in the line of fire for Captain Minatozaki,” another surgeon says. They’re five hours into the surgery, but they’re nowhere done yet. But Nayeon is still breathing, and that’s all that matters. As long as she breathes, they work, and even past that… “She saved her life.”

“Im Nayeon, right?” the woman next to Mina muses. “Child prodigy.”

                                                                       ☽

Mina recognizes Jihyo’s eyes in the window panel as she’s taking a two minute break. The clock on the wall reads that it’s well past midnight. It’s been ten hours since the operation began, but the commander looks as if she’s aged an eternity since Mina last saw her.

Jihyo gives her a sharp nod, and then she’s gone.

(Mina later finds out that Jihyo doesn’t sleep the entire night, pacing outside Nayeon’s operating room till she collapses from exhaustion.)

                                                                       ☽

It takes fifteen hours to get the wound in Nayeon’s chest closed, and another two to stabilize her. Her bloodstained suit as bagged up and disposed of, and Mina is the one to do it, shuddering at the slimy feel of Nayeon’s blood. There’s so much blood, but she placates herself with the knowledge that the very worst is over.

Her hypothesis turns out to be correct. The iron bar narrowly missed Nayeon’s heart, and if she’d been an inch to the left, she would’ve died on the spot. There is a gory scar on her chest, but Mina would rather that than the commander be dead.

Her hands are shaking even after Nayeon is cleaned up and wheeled out of the room. Her fellow surgeons are either unstable on their feet, on the brink of falling asleep after having worked fifteen hours straight, or trying to regulate their breathing from the sheer adrenaline of the situation.

She thanks all of them, bowing low and remaining there longer than she ought to, her breathing ragged but her expression schooled into one of false calmness. She wakes Jihyo as she leaves the operating room, shaking the commander awake and telling her to go back to her cabin to sleep easy.

Jihyo cries then, burying her head into her shoulder as they hug, sobbing out her thanks and whispering how she was so afraid she wouldn’t get the chance to apologize to Nayeon, how Nayeon isn’t the only one to owe Mina her life. Mina holds her tight, lets Jihyo pour her heart out until she is sleepy and takes Mina’s advice to go back.

She drops in to Momo and Sana’s wards to inform both of them that Nayeon is alive. Momo nods, crying softly when Mina breaks the news, arms drawn tightly around herself. Sana is still unconscious, heart monitor blipping along gently, but Mina knows she heard her from the way she shifts in her bed.

And then there isn’t anyone else to be strong for.

She doesn’t cry until after she gets back to her office, and even then it is a quiet affair, sobbing into her hands in overwhelming relief.

                                                                       ☽

She doesn’t go back to her cabin, heading straight to Nayeon’s ward when she wakes up in her high-backed chair. Her back is aching and her eyes are blurring, but she doesn’t care. How could she, when Nayeon’s been through so much? It’s crazy, the things one can do when they’re desperate, but she doesn’t stop to thank God.

Nayeon is sleeping when she enters, and Mina’s heart speeds up when she notices a note left by a nurse who’d checked in on her hours prior. Nayeon has already awoken, though the period of consciousness was brief and quickly consumed by sleep. She’s upset that she wasn’t around for Nayeon, but she figures that it’s minor.

Obediently, she draws a chair up by Nayeon’s bedside, and sits there, waiting patiently.

                                                                       ☽

Mina wakes up to Nayeon’s hand on hers, and immediately, she’s wide awake, heart leaping into her throat.

She stares at Nayeon, willing something,  _anything_ to happen, and the commander stares back.

“Doc,” Nayeon croaks, “Am I dead?”

                                                                       ☽

Nayeon will never know this, but Mina has nightmares, too.

                                                                       ☽

Mina was expecting this moment. She’d coached herself on how to react, because she didn’t want to panic on Nayeon. She’s built her life around being prepared, calm and collected. It’s what brought her through medical school, what led her to accept the transfer to the Jupiter satellite, but that’s different. She knew deep down that nothing would’ve been able to prepare her for this.

She lets out a gasp, and there are so many words in her throat that she should be able to say something, anything. But words fail her, and she is left to choke, drinking in the sight of Nayeon.

She’s  _alive_ \- and this is a victory too sweet for Mina.

“I’ll get Jihyo,” she says stupidly, rising, mostly because Jihyo will know what to do. Mina’s just the awkward doctor who operated on Nayeon, and the woman who slept with Nayeon once. Jihyo’s one of Nayeon’s actual friends, so it makes sense that her mind races towards the stern commander first.

Nayeon’s eyes fly open at the mention of Jihyo, and she is desperate, raising a hand to claw at Mina’s coat. She shakes her head frantically, and Mina freezes for once.

“Don’t… Don’t leave. Just … stay. Please,” Nayeon rasps, eyes filling with tears, and Mina is struck with an emotion too painful for words. Her heart squeezes with how much she  _lvoes_ this woman, how proud she is of her for pulling through, for putting herself in harm’s way when she had no reason to.  _She’s_ the reason Momo and Sana aren’t more injured, or even worse, dead, and the gravity of it washes over Mina like a shockwave.

She nods, slowly at first, then firmly, reassuring.

“I won’t,” she promises, sitting down again, “I won’t ever leave you.”

Nayeon falls asleep with her fingers curled into the material of Mina’s coat, and Mina upholds her end of the promise that Nayeon started. They find her slumped over Nayeon in the morning, their faces pressed closed together as they sleep.

                                                                       ☽

Nayeon doesn’t like talking about what happened, and makes it known to everyone the higher-ups send.

She tells the first attendant about a dark, damp orifice he can put his questions up, and tries to punch the second one in the face. Mina only laughs when they complain to her about it, knowing that little by little, Nayeon’s personality is resurfacing. Personally, she's of the opinion that they should mind their own business.

Nayeon is marvelous, and only slips once, when the news comes on about the incident and the destroyed  _Mayday._ Nayeon’s face falls when the reporter says something about how there were no survivors, describing how the United fleet had decimated it after the senseless attack on three Apollo-Jupiter pilots, and she doesn’t respond to anything Mina says for the next day and a half. Mina has to leave the room after Nayeon lowly threatens to throw a tray at her.

(Healing is so hard.)

Otherwise, Nayeon heals up well. She's relieved.

                                                                       ☽

“So,” Nayeon laughs, “What have you been up to while I was out?”

Mina answers truthfully, “Worrying about you, mostly.”

Nayeon raises an eyebrow, “So you’re  _not_ chatting up all the other pretty girls on the station? I heard that Jeongyeon has her eye on you, you know.”

Mina is genuinely worried about breaking Jeongyeon’s heart for a moment till she notices Nayeon’s stupid grin. She swats gently at her forearm, but can’t help buttering Nayeon up anyway, “There’s only one pretty girl on this station.”

                                                                       ☽

Recovery is slow, though. She wills away the days with Nayeon, never too far from her, ready to get up and get her food or drink if she so wishes. (She’s developed a particular craving for the vending machine’s burritos, and Mina only objects once before Nayeon pouts her way into getting one.)

Momo and Sana are discharged in that order, Momo joining Mina in her daily visits to Nayeon’s ward. (Mina is on shift for a few days before the higher-ups realize that she’s too distracted to perform her duties properly.) She leaves a bouquet of flowers and a card, having dropped by when Nayeon was asleep, promising to be back soon.

Sana comes after that, her arm in a sling, and bandages wrapped around the left side of her face. She tries to throw her arms around Nayeon when she first sees her, but when that proves to be tricky (Sana forgot that her arm was broken ), they settle for Sana blubbering to Nayeon as Mina steps out in respect of their privacy.

“You don’t have to stay here,” Nayeon mumbles one day as Mina’s reading in the chair next to her, and Mina slows down, staring at her in an unspoken question.

Nayeon shakes her head, “I’m not asking you to go, but you don’t have to be here if you don’t want to. I know I said all that about not wanting you to leave, but-”

“I want to stay,” Mina says bravely, and Nayeon looks relieved. She doesn’t know why she’s so compelled to stay with her, but a primal instinct buried deep inside of her insists on it, and Mina obeys it.

“Okay,” Nayeon says, and Mina pretends not to hear the small, bashful  _Thank you_ that follows.

☆

Jihyo comes in as Mina leaves for her shift (she’d finally managed to tear herself away from Nayeon, but only after making sure that Nayeon would be well taken care of), and Nayeon almost doesn’t notice at first, Jihyo’s soft footfalls blending pleasantly into the ambient noise.

“Jihyo?” she voices, surprised.

“It’s me,” Jihyo says, and her voice is lowered, shameful. Nayeon doesn’t miss her ragged breathing. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come down earlier. There’s no excuse for it, but I had to account to so many superiors, and I deserved it, I-”

“Jihyo,” Nayeon interrupts, firm even with the vantage point Jihyo has, “I get it. Commander stuff.”

“Not any more,” Jihyo smiles wryly, voice cracking, “My demotion’s being processed right now. I’m being charged with wilful endangerment of my insubordinates.”

“No.”

Jihyo shakes her head, “It’s crazy, isn’t it? I deserve it, though, I put all of you into-”

“There was no fucking  _way_ you could’ve anticipated what was going to happen,” Nayeon growls, sitting up and breathing slowly through the bolt of pain that arcs up her back from the action. “Does Sana know about this?”

“I didn’t want to tell her-”

“ _Tell her,_ ” Nayeon insists, glaring sternly at Jihyo until the younger girl looks away. She feels awful, and wonders if this is her fault, because she has never seen Jihyo look quite so broken. Jihyo has always been a pillar, even through stress and calamity. She looks almost… fragile, as if she might break if the wind changes direction.

Jihyo exhales, fists shaking at her sides. It’s not out of anger at Nayeon, so Nayeon doesn’t comment on it, “And what if she’s ashamed of  _me?_ ”

She almost laughs at the absurdity of the statement. Sana? Ashamed? Sana doesn’t  _know_ shame. That girl has a nose for justice like a bloodhound does for game, and Nayeon knows she’ll raise hell for Jihyo over this.  _Especially_ because it’s Jihyo.

“Trust me on this.” She hates begging. “Please.”

(Jihyo’s demotion never does get processed, and it may or may not have something to do with the nice talk Sana has with the officer in charge of it.)

☆

Nayeon is rummaging through her bag in search of a particularly spiffing pair of aviator goggles when Mina clears her throat from behind her. Her cabin door is wide open, so it shouldn’t surprise her, but she’s still startled at how easily Mina had tracked her down.

“Disobeying doctor’s orders, are we?” Mina has that smirk on her face, hands on her hips, and Nayeon wants to kiss it off.

Nayeon had left the second she could run properly, which had led to a police chase of sorts down the corridors of the medical wing. She’s not the prodigy of the Jupiter satellite for nothing, though, and managed to leg it far enough that they gave up on her. The attention and sympathy from surviving a massive injury like what she went through only lasts so long - the last autograph she signed was last week. In her defense, she was getting bored.

She conveys as much, “It was like  _jail,_ doc.” She pitches her voice higher, “  _Put your leg up! Try putting weight on it!_ ”

“That was physiotherapy, and I’m very disappointed that you didn’t go,” which would be a wounding statement if Mina actually tried looking serious while saying it. “Promise me that you’ll at least go for your checkups?”

“I’ll think about it.” She sticks her tongue out.

“ _Im Nayeon._ ”

(Nayeon definitely  _doesn’t_ get wet at the way Mina says her name. It must be sweat that’s decided to spontaneously form between her thighs.)

“Are we playing the name game?  _Myoui Mina._ There, I win.”

Nayeon doesn’t recall when Mina came so close, or when the door closed, or when she was backed up against the wall with Mina’s hands on her hips, but she’s not complaining. Mina leans in, eyes smoldering and fierce, murmuring something about how she’s going to make her regret whatever she just said, and Nayeon lets out a pathetic whimper.

She can never win.

☆

The daily routine comes back, slowly but surely. The hyperactive explorer in Nayeon takes a backseat in the interim, still shell-shocked from the incident, Commander Im taking the reins instead. It turns out to be more comfortable than she thought it’d be, and she grows into the position, coming to realize that not much has changed.

What  _does_ change is that she gets her own office, which is pretty cool - she repaints the entire thing a bright orange and has beanbags in within the week - as well as access to the officer’s lounge. Meaning better food, and getting to spend time with Mina without fearing being left alone in a crowd of superiors.

Mina and her turn heads a lot, and frankly, she understands. Even she’s not too sure what she and Mina are. Friends, definitely. People who sleep together? Sure. But are they  _dating?_ That question goes unanswered, and Mina doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to answer it, so neither is Nayeon. She’s just content in Mina’s presence, and eventually figures out that being together is more important than proclaiming that they’re together.

It’s telling, though. Mina starts sleeping in her cabin more and more (with the commander position comes a nicer cot, this time one that can fit two people), waking up smelling like Nayeon’s shampoo, and it’s nice. This is nice. For once, Nayeon is happy with where she is in life, content to wake up in Mina’s arms and not having to wonder about whether she belongs, because she knows that. Mina’s presence is testament to that.

☆

Her world is burning. She looks down, the sticky blood on her hands testament to the monster that she is, reminding her of who she killed, and she takes in a panicky breath, digging her nails into her palm so hard that she jolts awake.

“Mina?” Nayeon says sleepily, and Mina is digging her fingers into her back as she sobs.

Nayeon is alert almost immediately, pulling her close, cooing softly to her, telling her that she’s okay, she didn’t do anything wrong, they’re both alive and  _here_ and that’s what matters.

“I killed you,” Mina moans, tears sliding down her cheeks. Her hands are still trembling with the memory of Nayeon on her operating table, the flatline of the heart monitor that didn’t happen but feels real anyway. She’d seen Nayeon die - no, more than that, she’d  _killed her_ \- and the guilt drives her insane. “I  _killed you._ ”

“You didn’t,” Nayeon promises, kissing her and holding her as she cries and shakes. She must be uncomfortable that Mina’s nightmares revolve primarily around her dying in the operating room, but if she is, she doesn’t say anything, letting Mina sob until she falls back asleep.

They follow this pattern most nights, and it is unpleasant, but at least they have each other.

☆

Nayeon is the first one to say it.

“I love you,” she moans out, fingers digging into Mina’s hair and nails scratching leisurely against her scalp. It hurts, but Mina doesn’t care, only focusing on the heat in between Nayeon’s thighs. Nayeon was so ready for her, and her mouth works away diligently, steadfast and dependable. “I love you,  _fuck,_   _Mina,_ please, let me-”

“Okay,” Mina grants, and Nayeon’s orgasm is wet, teary and desperate. She makes sure to repay the favour with an eager tongue and slim fingers, and Mina bites down on her shoulder, bruising it but not caring. Everyone already knows that Nayeon is hers in every sense of the word - to not mark her would be a travesty, at this point.

They’re lying in bed together, basking in the afterglow of the moment when Mina speaks. Nayeon is sleepy and curled into her side, arm wrapped around her neck, but Mina figures that there’ll never be movie-worthy moments where she can spill her heart out and make dramatic confessions, not between the two of them. It’s just how their cards were dealt - she can’t complain.

“Did you mean it?”

“Mhm,” Nayeon nods against her neck, and that’s all the confirmation she needs to fall asleep without nightmares tonight.

☆

“Let’s go out,” Sana yawns from the beanbags. She’s been in here since she came back from patrol (Sana had leapt back into patrol enthusiastically after making a full recovery, and a little bird by the name of Yoo Jeongyeon mentioned a possible promotion for her), “I’m bored. Aren’t you bored, unnie?”

Nayeon pauses, her hand hovering over an approval form. She even has an official approval stamp these days, with her name and all, and she delights in using it on documents. It’s her second stamp, the first one being destroyed after Sana used it on herself. “Kind of.”

“Does Mina drink?” Sana muses.

☆

The bar - for the record, it’s  _not_ called the Space Bar, which Nayeon still thinks is a damn shame - is dark and filled with civilians and officers alike when they enter, Mina and Jihyo sandwiched between Nayeon and Sana. Nayeon still doesn’t know how Sana managed to talk both of them into coming, given the fact that Mina seems the cautious type and Jihyo would probably be worried about having someone else chat Sana up, but she’s happy.

She watches as a drunken Sana chats Jihyo up with another slurred pickup line, leaning over and shouting over to Nayeon that  _She agreed to give me her number_   _!_ When Jihyo finally responds to the awful pickup lines. Jihyo rolls her eyes, but she has a goofy lovestruck smile on her face, and so does Sana, and Nayeon thinks that this is what true happiness must be.

She looks over to Mina. The medic is bent over the counter, trying to get the bartender’s attention and failing, and Nayeon sighs happily.

_So, so lucky._

☆

“I’m envious of you,” Mina admits, smiling fondly as Nayeon orders another round of drinks for the entire bar, hand steadied on Nayeon’s thigh to remind her not to spend her entire salary at one go. “I wanted to be a fighter pilot.”

Nayeon makes an admirable effort not to slump over Mina’s lap, instead grabbing at her neck and kissing it.

“Then why didn’t you?”

“My satellite didn’t need fighter pilots,” Mina shrugs, Nayeon absorbing the information with a dazed nod. “They needed medics, so I became a doctor.”

“That’s… dumb,” Nayeon declares, “You’d be happier if you were a fighter pilot. Like me.”

“Wrong,” the younger woman smiles, pressing a kiss to Nayeon’s cheek, “I wouldn’t have met you otherwise.”   

Nayeon hums happily at the compliment, beginning to doze off in the crook of Mina’s neck. Mina laughs, because Nayeon never really does change. Because she doesn’t believe anyone else could’ve bounced back like Nayeon did, and for that, she is so proud.

Nayeon squeezes her hand, and she shifts up a little, lips grazing past Mina’s ear.

“Be my girlfriend.”

“Okay,” Mina says instantly, knowing that Nayeon means it even if she’s inebriated.

Nayeon pulls away from her, the loss of her warmth eliciting a whine from Mina. For a moment, she thinks Nayeon is going to kiss her, but she leans away instead, cupping her hands around her mouth and searching blearily for Sana in the darkness of the bar.

“SANA! SHE AGREED TO GO OUT WITH ME. I TOLD YOU,” Nayeon yells, and proceeds to nearly fall off her stool in her haste, only held upright by Mina’s hands pulling her back towards the bar.

Her eyes focus on Mina, and she seems to notice that she’s half-off her chair. “Oh, hey, didn’t see you there.”

“Neither did I,” Mina rolls her eyes, kissing the side of Nayeon’s neck, “Neither did I.”

☆

There are some things they will never be able to shake, like how Nayeon has night terrors and a fear of abandonment so great, that Mina wakes up with her sleep shirt soaked through from Nayeon’s tears on the regular. Or how Mina dreams of all the blood on her hands more than she likes to admit.

They open up, because the lost little girl, the flying ace of the station, Commander Im - they’re all Nayeon, have made her what she is today, and the same goes for Mina. They tell themselves that, seek comfort in each other. They don’t make each other whole, because they are whole on their own. Two whole parts of a two-parter, she supposes.

This isn’t the end, not by a long shot. It’s the beginning, and it goes a little like this: "Once, there was a doctor who hadn't planned on being a doctor, and a commander with a burning hatred of paperwork..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's over!! haha honestly my fics never feel like long journeys because i finish them quickly. they're more like... bungee jumps i guess. short but intense and i'm always sad by the time i'm done with them. anyway thank you for letting me indulge my inner minayeon and space nerd and letting me do plenty of exciting research for this fic! hope you enjoyed it!! 
> 
> ps. the chapter titles are the names of several satellites and i think it's super neat lmao


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